The invention relates to a veneer peeling apparatus comprising a bearing frame for rotatably supporting a round wood, a peeling blade which can be placed against the periphery of the round wood, and at least one milling head for scarfing at least one edge of the veneer.
For forming the veneer, the round wood is driven for rotation about its longitudinal axis in the bearing frame, and a web of veneer is continuously peeled off from the periphery of the round wood. Since the radius of the round wood decreases in this process, the peeling blade is adjusted in radial direction.
The peeled veneers produced in this way are used for example for forming veneer laminates. To that end, the web of veneer is divided, after peeling, into separate panels which are then dried, coated with an adhesive and are laminated one upon the other in the configuration of a so-called “book” and are glued together. The book is an endless string of several layers of the veneer panels wherein the butting joints between the individual panels are offset from one another from layer to layer. When the book is laid, the veneer panels are arranged such that the panels that belong to the same layer overlap one another in an edge zone, so that a good bond can be achieved. However, in order to prevent the material from becoming thicker in the edge zones than in the remaining areas, the panels are scarfed in the edge zones, i.e. they are cut or milled so as to acquire a wedge-shaped cross-section, so that their thickness decreases in the edge zone and linearly approaches zero towards the edge.
In the methods that are commonly employed, the panels are scarfed only after they have been dried. However, the dried veneer is relatively hard and is therefore difficult to machine. In particular, in case of relatively hard wood such as beech, the scarfing frequently results in irregularities and breakage of the material so that the trim of the veneer becomes irregular and frayed.
DE 887 702 discloses a veneer peeling apparatus of the type described above, wherein a milling head for scarfing the veneer is integrated, so that so-called wet scarfing may be performed prior to, during, or directly after the peeling process and in any case before the veneer is dried.